Our 9 Most Popular Stories This Week

We got into the Christmas spirit this week at Food Republic, and our roundup of coffee, booze and homemade gift guides surely came in handy for timely holiday shopping sprees. We know that our last-minute cookbook gift guide certainly saved Christmas for at least one member of the editorial staff. As 2014 fast approaches, we continued to look back at the year behind us, rounding up our most popular dessert recipes and choosing our top 25 Instagrams of the year (this was no easy task). Between year in review stories and killer recipes from celeb chefs John Besh and Hong Thaimee, even the short week managed to keep us busy. Here are this week's top stories.